My little family had a wonderful weekend celebrating Independence Day!
Nothing says “Small Town America” like the parade we enjoyed in the mountains! I took TOO MANY pictures to share, but here are a few:

We saw a lot of these:

And a lot of these! But I had to show you this one because I loved the ghost flames in the paint! Can you see them?

There were a lot of people on floats (trailers), but this one was special. The older man in the chair was a POW (Prisoner of War) in WWII! I wish I had gotten a better picture of him. God bless our veterans!

We got a good laugh out of all of the hillbillies … No, I’m not making fun of the people — these men were dressed like hillbillies and drove rusty trucks.


God bless America, land that I love! (This was BEFORE the parade. Hubby wasn’t on phone DURING parade.) :o)



Later that evening we saw a lot of THESE. I attempted to get a LOT of shots, but most of them were just a blur.


To my family, it was really cool outside. We told our mountain friends that it felt like October — football weather. I was shivering before it was over!

Here comes another fun part of our trip. Our mountain house is near the New River.

Cool trivia for you! Did you know the New River is the OLDEST river in the United States? It is the 2nd oldest in the WORLD. The New River also flows geographically NORTH.

Anyway, this is the first time our family has spent time in the river though we’ve had a house up there since 2007.

The pictures are deceiving because the water is clear.


Here was a problem. The first day in the river, we didn’t know we needed to wear swim shoes! Each of us had on flip flops which weren’t the best for walking across slippery rocks.



Princess enjoyed finding fresh water muscles (I didn’t even know we had muscles in rivers!).



Here I am watching Princess, but also thinking about sharing our pictures on my blog. Ha.



My husband is such a good daddy!



The next morning I purchased us all swim shoes — and though my hubby bucked wearing them at first, he found they were perfect for walking in the river!

He was making this face for our friend Ron (who was supposed to be the recipient of this photo – ha). Don’t tell him I put it on my blog for everyone to see.

As usual, we didn’t want to come home.

Warning: I have more pictures that might pop up in future posts.